The Music of Life
by The Bawdy Bardess
Summary: When Fiona- and only Fiona- receives Jonas's memory of Release, she is in danger of the Committee who doesn't want anyone to know about their system of euthanasia.


Rating- PG, for main character death. No profanity, or obscenities, or violence, because I'm not going to actually show Fiona dying.  
  
Summary- In her own hand, Fiona takes you from the time of Jonas's loss, to her newfound and solitary knowledge of Release, which makes her the target of the Committee, who does not want their secret revealed to the otherwise pacified community.  
  
Author's Notes- I would like to consider this my magnum opus, and, considering I am a proud Christian, there will be many Christian references. If you don't like that, please don't include that in your review. You aren't reviewing my religious beliefs, but my story. And besides, The Giver has a Christian moral of self-sacrifice for the better good. I'm not forcing my beliefs on you, you are choosing to read this story on your own.  
  
As individual members of an orchestra perform their vacillated parts of a symphony, resting and playing at staggered times in the music, so should everyone's life be, each with his respective moments of triumph and solitude.  
  
I realize now that our community stifles the music of life, our perfect community, with its order and its sameness, is merely the settled ocean surface that overlays the turbulence underneath. For now I have the knowledge that condemns me, yet also liberates me. And so I thank you, Jonas, and the Giver, for these gifts. Thank you for your apprenticeship.  
  
First, I received the memory of music. This was not from Jonas's cornucopia of lost memories, but a gift from the Giver, who was released yesterday. He gave it to me as he was walking into the Releasing Room. I am honored to say that I am the last person the Giver talked to, and he told me that, of all the citizens that Jonas knew, he would have wanted me to have the memory of music. So, as I sit in the Annex, monitored by people I cannot see, I am comforted by the soothing sounds of people who performed long before me, people with exotic names like Mozart and Chopin, and Debussy.  
  
Second, I received the memory of love. I can now imagine a life with love in it, one that no one in the community will know for a long time. I know of the love parents have for their children, and of grandparents, I know of animals, and their love for people, and I know of the love of a man and a woman, which I know I could now feel for Jonas, if only he were here. Most comforting to me, though, was the love a man felt for his community, which was so deep that he was willing to be released in an excruciatingly painful manner (pain was self-explained in that memory) so that his community could be saved.  
  
This is not unlike what will take place tomorrow, and so I am consoled knowing that I am not alone in my endeavors. There have been people before me who have sacrificed themselves for others, and it is my most profound wish that there will be others in this community after me, who will do the same.  
  
For the last memory I received was that of death. The Giver told me that I was extremely lucky in my reception of memories, because most of mine were happy ones. I beg to differ, because now, fear of my looming fate is setting in, and I would give anything at this moment to have not known what Release was. No. I do not know that I would have given up music or love for anything (except maybe color. Asher tells me I have the most beautiful and unique hair- unique being my best compliment now). But I am the only one in the Community who knows about Death and Release, other than the Committee, and it is the wish of the committee that I do not reveal this secret. The key component of this Community rests in the smoothness of Release, and if people knew they were being taken to their deaths, well...  
  
So, they hope that the secret will go with me to the grave. I hope it will not. I hope that people become aware of the horrors of this community, and that they overthrow the Committee that murders babies, the old, and the imperfect, and me. I am willing to go quietly, but I must make sure that everyone knows my story. The only one I could trust was the Giver, and with him gone, these empty, but soon-to-be-filled sheets of paper will bear witness to all that I know.  
  
Yes, this is a reference to Jesus's crucifixion.  
  
He was led as a sheep to the slaughter. And as a lamb is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. He was humiliated and received no justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.  
  
-----Isaiah 53:7-8  
  
So, please review! This is just the prelude or the prolegomenon (tee hee), but I would like to know what you think. 


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